Quanto
Service
Conception, design, development
Technology
iOS
Client
Karlmax Berlin GmbH & Co. KG
Year
2014 – today
What was Karlmax’s role in the project?
We developed the concept together with an expert partner and took over the complete development of design and app.
Why does the user need the app?
Because you should really do your sums before you invest a whole heap of money into your own four walls.
What can the app do?
Quanto answers the question: Exactly how much does an apartment or a house cost?
What does it cost per month, how much per m², how much now and how much in ten years? On the basis of a few steps, the estate agent creates an elaborate finance plan that includes cost areas that are usually overlooked. All values and calculations are then laid out in pdf format. Quanto also differentiates between the numbers that investors need when investing in a property, and those that a resident home owner would need.
The challenge
Formulas, numbers and cryptic abbreviations…
Real estate financing is a dry, complex subject. Additionally, there are big differences in terms of calculation between apartments which are bought as investments, and those bought to live in. With the app we wanted to give real estate agents control over all these financial aspects of real estate purchasing without overloading their senses. The app is intended to do the groundwork to add concrete numbers to the various emotional and individual arguments for and against purchase decisions.
How did we proceed?
The first version of the app was correct in its calculations, but confusing and almost impossible to use for the uninitiated. We collected all the feedback and went back to the drawing board. Ultimately we gave up on the idea of collecting all information on a single page (hallo Excel), and separated the input possibilities into multiple steps. We also inserted further control elements into the individual pages, to direct the user’s attention and somewhat hold in check the variety of numbers. In this way we turned a dry, complex subject into a user-friendly, clever app that was even fun to use.*
*some claims made by some test subjects in the second usability test. In no way representative!
Behind the scenes or: Why the app didn’t get called “Wohneigentumsinvestitionsrechner” (Home Ownership Investiture Calculator) after all
To be able to describe an app so accurately and comprehensively in just one word is one of the many wonderful qualities of the German language. Some doubters however raised the point of just how marketable that name might be. With the short, powerful and Latin expression Quanto however, we expressed exactly the question one might ask oneself. In essence: “How much?” Official homepage of the Quanto app
